It’s Not Graceland, but It’s Sanctuary : Pop music: For Africa’s Elvis--Tabu Ley Rochereau--Anaheim has become a home away from home--when he’s not on the road.

Modero Mekanisi, who plays saxophone for African pop music giant Tabu Ley Rochereau, walked along a quiet street here on a sizzling summer day and stretched his hands skyward.

“You see?” he said. “Anaheim is like Kinshasa!”

It probably is safe to say that the home of Disneyland and the teeming capital of Zaire in central Africa are not often compared. But the two cities half a world apart do have at least one thing in common: warm weather year-round--which is something Rochereau and the members of his Orchestre Afrisa International missed desperately in New Jersey, the latest on the long list of former addresses they’ve compiled since leaving strife-torn Zaire reluctantly in 1988.

And so it is that a faded blue-and-white Craftsman home in suburban Orange County has become the latest base of operations for this storied band on the run.

Ten of the band’s 14 members live in the rented two-story house and its apartment-style addition in back, above a garage where they sometimes rehearse. Two additional members live in Pomona, and two female dancers live in Los Angeles; one had stopped by with a bag of groceries on this Saturday, on this rare long weekend between concert tours.

During a two-hour interview with Rochereau and Mekanisi, a stream of sleepy-eyed musicians straggled downstairs from morning showers; from the back of the house came the sounds of African pop recordings. The living room was packed wall-to-wall with couches but almost free of decoration, as befits a group that spends so much of its life on the road.

Family was notably absent. Rochereau’s wife and children live in Paris, where there is a sizable community of Zairian expatriates, but as the United States increasingly becomes a major market for his music, the singer finds that the United States is where he must stay.

Pioneers of the internationally successful dance music called soukous, Rochereau and his band have filled stadiums the world over. “He seems to be the best known, most respected African musician,” says E. Michael Harrington, chairman of the music composition department at Belmont University in Nashville and a teacher of world music classes there and at the University of Alabama. “He’s been around so long, has so many recordings. . . .”

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For a man who has been called the African Elvis, his life of crowded quarters and separation from family is Spartan, to say the least. But he says it is relaxing to return here on breaks from the near-constant touring. In Anaheim, he can while away some of his precious quiet time on his wooden porch in the sun. Or he can hold court at his favorite local restaurant--a Norm’s.

“To be here is better. The weather is better. . . . We feel more at home here on the West Coast,” he said. It’s not just the weather; they also like the neighbors. “On the East Coast, everybody’s busy. Sometimes you don’t know your neighbor,” said Mekanisi. Since moving here a year ago, he noted, band members have been invited to several parties on this street of apartment buildings and older homes. “From the first day, they welcomed us.”

Any sense of home is accepted gratefully by Rochereau who, at 54, has been traveling almost as long as he can remember. “Since I was a kid, all my time I’m on a trip,” said Rochereau, who speaks English but who gave his more complex answers in French, to be translated by Mekanisi. “In Africa, in Europe, I’m always moving.”

His most recent tour took the band to Kenya and Uganda for a month. He squeezed in a 24-hour stop in Paris to visit his family, and was off again. After a show tonight at the Long Beach Museum of Art, the band hits the road for a swing through Northern California.

Rochereau’s already nomadic life became even less rooted in 1988 when he left Zaire, which was crumbling politically and economically. A stream of Zairian musicians, including such international stars as Kanda Bongo Man and Papa Wemba, left in the ‘80s and settled in Paris. But Rochereau moved from place to place on an itinerary dictated by his exhaustive tour schedule.

From Kinshasa, the band moved first to Virginia, from there to Paris, then briefly to Los Angeles and then to New Jersey. They knew of Anaheim because their manager, David Gaar, had been an Orange County resident. Gaar moved recently to San Francisco but Mekanisi, who has been with Rochereau for 24 years, has been taking about bringing his own wife and children here from London--a sign that the band may stay awhile.

These days, the band plays a steady stream of clubs, concert halls and festivals in the United States. It also tours regularly in Europe, Africa, even Japan. But one place it has not appeared since 1988 is Zaire.

Rochereau has been back only twice for short and somber visits: for the funeral in 1989 of Franco, his onetime musical rival, and for the funeral in 1991 of his former wife. Rochereau, who once sang songs in praise of Zaire’s President Mobutu, has in recent years been harshly critical of the longtime dictator who many say is responsible for his country’s continuing slide into poverty and virtual anarchy.

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Rochereau said he thinks that returning for any length of time would be risky. He said that he doesn’t think he would be harmed outright or arrested but that he feels certain he would not be allowed to perform and might even be denied medical treatment.

“That is exactly the weapon the government is using against the opposition. If you are not with them, you cannot survive.” So for now, he said, he is content with phone calls to the country--sometimes several a day--and he takes pleasure that his music still is played on Zairian radio.

He looks forward to a time when he can return to perform, but he thinks that even then, he would keep the United States as a base--for ease of travel, for touring opportunities and because he now enjoys recording here. He made two albums last year in New Orleans for Rounder Records, a label based in Cambridge, Mass. One, “Muzina,” a collection of new material, was received enthusiastically here and in Africa. The other, “Worldwide Africa” with new versions of some of his classic songs, will be released in the fall.

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“Worldwide Africa” will mark 35 years as a professional musician for Rochereau. He has moved out of the spotlight at times, and there were reports in the ‘80s that the quality of his stage shows was tailing off, but notices from recent tours indicate reinvigoration. Harrington said he saw him last year at the Roxy in Boston, and “it was wonderful. The whole place was just dancing like mad.”

Rochereau was among the first to bring African pop to a wider audience with an astonishingly successful run at the Paris Olympia in 1970: 26 performances in 18 days, followed by a shorter engagement at the London Palladium. Mekanisi said Rochereau still is opening ears to African music, estimating that 60% of the people in his typical U.S. audiences have never seen a live African band before.

Rochereau was just 14 when he first came to attention, winning a vocal competition in front of 80,000 people in Kinshasa’s sports stadium. The city then was just blooming into its position as the continent’s pop music capital, a place where Cuban rumba rhythms were melding with uptown African sensibilities to create a sophisticated new dance music style.

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The dominant presence on the scene was Joseph Kabasele, also known as Le Grand Kalle, who took Rochereau (then known by his given name, Tabu Pascal) under his wing when the young singer was still in his teens.

Rochereau wrote for Kabasele, without credit, until he joined African Jazz as a full-fledged member in 1960. Through several bands--and, by his count, more than 100 albums and 2,000 songs--Rochereau has put his own distinctive stamp on urban Zairian pop.

He helped to establish what remains a standard formula for soukous songs: a lilting, ballad-like opening, a slightly speeded-up middle section with chorus vocals, and the infectious sebene finale in which interweaving guitar lines careen over a hyperspeed rumba rhythm.

Rochereau’s honey-toned tenor still is emulated by younger generations of soukous stars. During his heyday in Kinshasa, his slick, sophisticated sound was heard in counterpoint to Franco’s rootsier groove--a Beatles/Stones-style rivalry that was played for full effect, even though the two were friends privately and even recorded an album together before Franco’s death.

Many of the biggest soukous stars, from Papa Wemba to Sam Mangwana, passed through Rochereau’s bands and benefited from his tutelage. Now that Franco and Kabasele are dead, Rochereau is Zaire’s surviving musical statesman, albeit one who largely is cut off from his homeland.

And that poses a challenge for Rochereau: He must strive to keep his music close to its origins while living in places like Anaheim that--temperature aside--really have little in common with Kinshasa, a city that has kept its musical vitality under even the most trying conditions.

One thing he does is rotate young musicians from Zaire through his band, giving them a chance for international exposure and experience while they energize Rochereau and keep him abreast of musical developments back home.

“When you stay a long time here, not to go home, you get more Westernized,” said Rochereau, who was wearing a colorful African jacket over a House of Blues T-shirt. The outfit seemed to symbolize the way he straddles two worlds, but “we want to keep the roots,” he said. “We want to stay the same.”

* Tabu Ley Rochereau and l’Orchestre Afrisa International play tonight from 7 to 9 in the Long Beach Museum of Art’s sculpture garden, 2300 Ocean Blvd., Long Beach. $8 to $11. (310) 439-2119.