^IN URUGUAY, THE MUSIC KNOWN AS 'CANDOMBE' UNITES BLACK AND WHITE@< ^By ZOLTAN ISTVAN@< ^National Geographic Channel@< ^c.2003 National Geographic Channel@< ^(Distributed by New York Times Special Features)@<  A warm night breeze floats through a poor, mixed-race neighborhood of colonial-era houses in Montevideo, Uruguay _ and carries the music of liberation.  On Peatonal Curuguaty Street, hundreds of young people gather around 10 drummers pounding out the scorching rhythms of the traditional music known as candombe.  Soon dancers surround the drummers and, then, spontaneously, the crowd becomes a carnival parade, snaking through the streets. As drummers and dancers move from block to block, more Montevideans pour out and join in.  The so-called Sunday night jam is the sight and sound of a new society. The crowd includes whites and blacks _ an integration almost unheard-of 25 years ago.  Like reggae in Jamaica, candombe energizes the movement to bring recognition and a voice to the Afro-Uruguayans, as the descendants of slaves call themselves. But this street music has become a cultural outpouring that black and white Uruguayans now embrace as their national music.  "Candombe has always been a celebration of the black spirit," says Waldemar Silva, a director of candombe theater shows during Montevideo's Carnival and throughout the year. "When that spirit was taken from Africa to Uruguay, it became a tool for change and for freedom."  Candombe, traditionally played on a tambor-like drum, springs from the music, dance and drama of Central and West Africa, researchers say. Candombe's origins still resonate in certain rhythms and dance gestures.  "Candombe is very interactive," says Lyneise Williams, a doctoral candidate at Yale University writing a thesis is on the Uruguayan artist Pedro Figari, who frequently painted candombe scenes.  "There is drumming, dances and performances with specific characters. As the drummers march down the street they will occasionally put down their instruments and act out scenes. Spectators will also join in, playing the role of a certain character."  The slave trade shipped millions of Africans to the Americas. During the 18th and 19th century, slaves from Argentina and Brazil were imported to Uruguay. They brought their candombe with them.  During the 19th century, colonialists tried to ban candombe but the slaves took it underground. The outlaw music, practiced in secret, came to symbolize defiance.  Today the Afro-Uruguayans number around 100,000, or about 6 percent of the population. Last year a U.S. State Department report on human rights in Uruguay pointed out that on average they earn less than 60 percent of the median income of the white population.  During the past 30 years, candombe has come into the mainstream. Under an 11-year military dictatorship that ruled Uruguay from 1973 TO 1984, interest in the music intensified. Its rhythm and rebelliousness influenced white musicians and, with the addition of Spanish elements, it became ever more widespread.  "Candombe differs from one black neighborhood to another," says Williams. "(Those local forms) are in turn quite different from the popularized fusion candombe that is Uruguay's export."  "Candombe has grown much larger than anyone ever thought it would," says Lagrima Rios, president of Mundo Afro, a black cultural and political organization. "At Mundo Afro we're thrilled with its growth since candombe is still strongly associated with the Afro-Uruguayan cause for racial equality."  However, "it's not like there's enormous amounts of discrimination going on against Afro-Uruguayans," says Alicia Garcia Suarez, a coordinator for GAMA, a black women's organization.  "It's just the small things _ like many black women continue to be maids for white people and their businesses because it's too difficult to get jobs doing something else. It's the same kind of work that black women have been doing for nearly three centuries. It's time for a change."  To its adherents, candombe symbolizes the imagination, energy and passion of a people poised for change.  Candombe, on the tambor and on contemporary instruments, reigns at Carnival and in everyday celebrations like birthdays. Clubs and bars like the popular El Pony Pisador feature it. Street performers play it for the tourists in the Plaza Independencia. The music also goes along when protesters rally in front of Montevideo's police headquarters.  Mundo Afro holds weekly classes on instruction in candombe drumming that blacks and whites attend.  "The message is always the same," says Luis Julio Acuna, who works in the Mundo Afro Media Center. "We try to teach the basics of the music and rhythm. But we also remind students of candombe's history and its use as a tool to end racial injustice."  On Peatonal Curuguaty Street, after the Sunday night jam moves on, the candombe spirit lingers in the air.