No, they certainly weren't hip. In 1962 in one of my first jobs at the age of 22, a colleague who was 30 years older but clearly aimed to be hip, said to me, "My son likes Brubeck. I should try to get him on to Monk, shouldn't I."
In 1959 I saw a package show with the Brubeck quartet, the Gillespie quintet with Les Spann, Junior Mance and Sam Jones and the Buck Clayton All Stars with Emmett Berry, Buddy Tate, Dicky Wells and Earl Warren. The majority opinion afterwards was that Brubeck was "fabulous", but the others were "rubbish". Brubeck, like the MJQ, drew audiences in those days who were pretty distant from jazz listeners, as we now know them.