(peaceful music) - I'm here talking to two my friends, longtime friends, Ollie Gates, whose restaurant we are in.

And the Gates Restaurant has been here since Gates as a restaurant company has been in Kansas City since - '46 - 1946.

- That's correct.

- In this location...we're on Emanuel Cleaver Boulevard.

And it just so happens that we have Emmanuel Cleaver, former mayor now congressman sitting here.

And I want to talk a little bit about barbecue, and I want to talk about 18th & Vine to you all.

And so Ollie, 1946.

- Yes.

- Your father?

- Yes.

- Inherits/buys Henry Perry's old barbecue the Ol' Kentuck.

We've got a picture of it right back here.

But the Ol' Kentuck, when you go back to the twenties and the thirties, it was the barbecue place for 18th & Vine, for jazz musicians.

- Yes.

- And they used to come and play.

- It was a combination.

- Right?

- Yeah.

- It was a club - (laughs) Speakeasy.

- And I mean, you're still, today you can get good liquor here at the Gates Barbecue.

- Yes.

- I used to like going- - But it's legal today.

- It's legal.

That reminds us.

Yes, there was prohibition in those days.

And though you've expanded way beyond 18th & Vine in many ways, 18th & Vine is still a home.

- Oh, absolutely.

- And the two of you together have been the two people who have tried to restore, to rebuild 18th & Vine, the Negro Leagues Museum and the American Jazz Museum.

What can we do to tell the world about 18th & Vine, which was so important to the music of this country, and we fed baseball players in the Negro Leagues out of Ol' Kentuck and elsewhere.

How can we tell the world about its importance?

- The world probably does not understand where some things came from.

And what we need to do is make sure they connected with Kansas City.

For example, the Negro Leagues were formed right off of 18th & Vine at Paseo YMCA, the home of Charlie Parker, Kansas City, right here.

Count Basie made this his home.

- Satchel Paige- - [Crosby] Satchel Paige.

- Made this his home and Buck O'Neil.

And it could go on and on and on with great jazz players.

You know, and I think when you connect all of that, it was done in the middle of an African American economic center around 18th & Vine, where, you know, if you think about it, there were black businesses back in the 1940s and 50s that were successful.

- [Crosby] A huge amount of black businesses, the hotels, barbers, tailors.

You name it, all kinds of retail.

The first black automobile dealership was owned by a black man was in Kansas City.

- [Emmanuel] Absolutely right.

- [Crosby] It's a very important place for small businesses.

- [Ollie] It's the only thing in this country that's known nationally.

- [Crosby] Yeah.

- [Ollie] 18th & Vine.

- [Crosby] Absolutely; internationally, - My wife and I are in a bus in Tel Aviv, and we're just looking out the window and they're on the wall is a giant painting of Charlie Parker.

- Right.

- And I think that people in Kansas City may not realize the significance of 18th & Vine.

- Yeah.

- But the world does.

- I think, you know, Satchel Paige and Charlie Parker are the big names, and I think they are known around the world.

I mean, even though there's not a lot of film of Satchel, there's a huge amount of, you know, music of Charlie Parker you can hear.

But even without that ability to actually see Satchel pitch, the stories are so great.

The legends are so great that they'll live forever, I think.

So let's talk a little bit about barbecue itself.

- Right.

- The history of barbecue.

- Okay.

- You know, and- - That's my field.

- I understand that.

I understand that.

And, you know, what's different about Gates Barbecue?

What's different about Kansas City barbecue that makes it so great?

- Well, I don't know about Kansas City barbecue, but when you talk about barbecue itself, it's a personality.

That's all.

It's the personality of the people that manufacture and cook it.

So that's all it is.

It's a matter of taste and a matter of flavor.

- Why is it so...it's important in the black community, but also black barbecue is pretty great.

I mean, black people have dominated...dominated may be too strong a word, but have had a huge influence in barbecue.

- Well it's just like anything; they was so poor that they had to do certain things to make the product be what it was, they didn't have no stove... pit is just what it said was a hole in the ground with a grate over it.

That was the pit.

And today they call 'em pits, but that was what it really was.

And that's how it started, that's how Henry Perry started out with a hole in the ground and built from that.

Now, today we, but you had an open top... today we just capture that whole flavor by encasing it.

That's all.

- Yeah.

- And we call 'em pits, but everything is encased, we're still a hole in the ground.

- Right.

- But it got a top on it.

- Right, right.

- It captures the whole flavor of it.

- One of the things that in Kansas City barbecue history, which is I think like a lot of other barbecues, a lot of it started as sort of street food.

- Yeah.

- I mean, street food's a big deal these days with food trucks and that sort of thing.

In Washington DC where you and I spend a lot of time, it's food truck heaven, and barbecue in Kansas City is a commercial thing.

Really sort of started that way.

- Well, it started just like they start selling on the corner.

- Right.

- 19th and Highland was where Perry started and that had a pit in the ground and they start selling on Saturday nights and Sunday nights and Friday nights.

And pretty soon somebody said, let's put it on the inside so we can do it year round.

- Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

- And so that's what happened.

But it grew from that.

We were fortunate to get in on the ground floor.

We've been doing it about 75 or 77 years this year, I believe it is.

- 77 years.

- 77 years.

Yeah, so, we've had a lot of fun.

- You know, when you're poor, you become creative.

- Right.

- And so, you know, instead of just eating the beans, you know, you have to dress it up- - Get sauce and spices.

- And so nobody would eat beans every day.

It would be the most boring thing in the world.

But when you dress it up like this, man, I mean now it becomes a specialty.

- Absolutely.

A lot of cities would've torn everything down in the blighted area that 18th & Vine had become.

And the Civic Council, I think, was ready to do that.

Right?

- Yes.

- And you convinced them that not everybody was happy about it.

- Yes, yeah.

I mean, retrospectively, I'm sure the people who were saying, well yeah, I encourage the 18th & Vine development.

The truth is, there was a lot of resentment.

Some of the civic people wanted the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the Jazz Museum in Union Station, which was under development at the time.

And they said...'cause it won't work over on the east side.

And I had to almost lose friendship with a number of people.

But we did not, you know, retreat.

We knew that it had to be where it was or it would not be authentic.

It would not be an attraction if it was, you know, in Crown Center.

- And you still have it to give to as a tourist attraction.

- Right.

The 18th & Vine, including of the ideas of having the museum there, the jazz museum, the Negro Baseball League, and with what the Negro Baseball League is opting to do right now, to build an addition to the Buck O'Neil Center, that will make it an international area that draw tourists to Kansas City.

And instead of trying to draw a hundred thousand, just draw 10 and 20,000 folk to Kansas City and make sure that they're comfortable and have something to see.

And 18th Street has something to see.

And we can continue to add on to the history as you were saying, of what could be there, what should be there.

We'll make that a great tourist attraction.

- It's a gold mine.

- Yeah, you have a gold mine in 18th & Vine.

- Absolutely.

- We're just not pursuing it exactly right.

- Well you two have been pursuing a lot over the years, so- - Yeah, but we need all Kansas City to get behind it.

- All of Kansas City.

Exactly right.

Black culture in this city and in this country has made such a huge impact.

And it's in food, barbecue.

This is my favorite version of it.

But there's lots of other things as well.

Jazz, baseball, politics, the movies, TV, et cetera.

We're coming up to the 250th anniversary of the country.

How do we celebrate that?

How can we use that celebration to celebrate the things that we've just been talking about?

- This is an area rich with history and we ought to exploit it.

I think people all over need to know some of the characters in Kansas City.

Seldom Seen was a character in Kansas City.

Jay McShann, all these magnificent jazz artists lived here.

And 18th & Vine jumped and jumped and jumped.

And there are a lot of us who believe there's still some jump left.

- So, you know, jumping is of course a jazz term, but it's pretty a term for any live culture, including cuisine, including food.

So is it still gonna jump, Ollie?

- I hope so.

I'm with you.

- Okay.

- I don't have much longer here, but the time that I have- - You look in pretty good shape.

- Yeah for 91 years old, pretty good shape, but all in terms of 91.

(group laughs) (peaceful music) (piano music)