By Geoffrey Himes

                  Friday, November 13, 1998; Page N16

                  When Dizzy Gillespie brought Afro-Cuban jazz to North America in the late
                  '40s, he was drawing on master Cuban drummers who had emigrated to the
                  United States. Those congueros were drawing on Havana's popular dance
                  bands, and those bands were drawing on religious groups out in Cuba's
                  provinces, whose use of chanting and drumming was little changed from the
                  music brought from Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries. Seldom have those
                  fundamentals of Afro-Cuban music been documented as usefully as they are
                  on "Raices Africanas" ("African Roots") by Grupo AfroCuba de Matanzas.

                  Unlike African slaves in the American South, those in Cuba were often
                  allowed to congregate by tribe, keep their drums and thus preserve their Old
                  World traditions in organizations called cabildos. Many of those cabildos are
                  still active today, and members from several different groups in the port city
                  of Matanzas formed Grupo AfroCuba in 1957. Consisting entirely of
                  percussionists, singers and dancers, the troupe plays essentially religious
                  music, honoring the gods of West Africa with hypnotic call-and-response
                  patterns.

                  These musical dialogues are dominated not by the singers but by the drums,
                  which are each tuned to a specific pitch, a distinctive voice. The low-pitched
                  lead drum will initiate a phrase that is both rhythmic and melodic, and the
                  other drums respond with both echoes and variations on the phrase. The
                  chanting singers then amplify the dialogue with their own give and take. The
                  lack of horns and strings may dismay the North American listener, but the
                  gradually accumulating effect is mesmerizing and provides an invaluable
                  glimpse at the origins of the hugely influential Afro-Cuba sound.

                  Appearing Saturday at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium.
                  To hear a free Sound Bite from Grupo AfroCuba de Matanzas, call
                  Post-Haste at 202/334-9000 and press 8112. (Prince William residents, call
                  690-4110.)
 

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