Yet, the irony is that this band was pretty much overlooked by the mainstream in its time. Maybe not as a club/concert/festival attraction (hell, it was STILL MILES DAVIS!!!), but those records did not have a broad appeal. I was struck in my colege years how few people had them, and I'm talking about music majors, jazz majors, people who were not uniformed as to who the individual. Plenty of people had the Wayne & Herbie BNs, and plenty of people had Miles up until, say, Seven Steps or FOUR AND MORE, and most everybody had at least one electric MILES album and PLENTY of electric Herbie & Weather Report. But the Second Quintet was almost a mystery band, a band and a music that people knew existed (the records were in all the store, but just decided to avoid for whatever reason. There was a handful, a VERY small handful, of cats who were hip to this stuff, and not coincidentally, most of them are still active in creative music today.
One guy, an arranger named Paul Holderbaum, had a rehearsal band that I played in, and I distinctly remember hanging at his crib one night (1978 or so), playing poker and drinking, etc, while side one of NEFERTITI played over and over in the background. Paul stopped for no reason at all and said, You know, we're listening to this now like it's so hip, but in 10 years, it's gonna be like bebop is now." Well, I was skeptical, but I see now that he was right, even if his prediction came true a lot quicker than he had anticipated.
What caused this turnaround in public appreciation? It's easy yo point to the first Wynton/Branford band, but I think there's more to it than that. I think it's the Japanese Pluggged Nickel albums. I've written in the past about how hot an item those things were in certain circles, how they became cult favorites, ultimate symbols of hipness, years before Columbia released them in America on LP, and MANY years before the PN Box came out, here OR in Japan. Couple that with the very real sense of excitement over the first VSOP band, and you have a groundswell of interest that finally exploded when Wynton's band first hit. Some people were saying, "Hey, it's just a rehash of '60s Miles", but just as many, if not more, responded by saying, "I've never really checked out '60s Miles."
Now, like you say, that stuff is VERY "mainstream", at least among musicians. But it weren't always so!
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