Editing Sarah Vaughan (section)

===1943–1944: Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine===
Vaughan spent the remainder of 1943 and part of 1944 touring the country with the Earl Hines big band, which featured [[Billy Eckstine]]. She was hired as a pianist so Hines could hire her under the jurisdiction of the musicians' union ([[American Federation of Musicians]]) rather than the singers union ([[American Guild of Variety Artists]]). But after [[Cliff Smalls]] joined the band as a trombonist and pianist, her duties were limited to singing. The Earl Hines band in this period is remembered as an incubator of [[bebop]], as it included trumpeter [[Dizzy Gillespie]], saxophonist [[Charlie Parker]] (playing tenor saxophone rather than alto), and trombonist [[Bennie Green]]. Gillespie arranged for the band, although the [[1942–44 musicians' strike|contemporary recording ban]] by the musicians' union meant that no commercial recordings exist.

Eckstine quit the Hines band in late 1943 and formed a big band with Gillespie, leaving Hines to become the band's musical director. Parker joined Eckstine, and over the next few years the band included [[Gene Ammons]], [[Art Blakey]], [[Miles Davis]], [[Kenny Dorham]], [[Dexter Gordon]], and [[Lucky Thompson]]. Vaughan accepted Eckstine's invitation to join his band in 1944, giving her the opportunity to record for the first time on December 5, 1944, on the song "I'll Wait and Pray" for [[De Luxe Records|De Luxe]]. Critic and producer [[Leonard Feather]] asked her to record later that month for [[Continental Records|Continental]] with a septet that included Dizzy Gillespie and [[Georgie Auld]]. She left the Eckstine band in late 1944 to pursue a solo career, although she remained close to Eckstine and recorded with him frequently.

Pianist [[John Malachi]] is credited with giving Vaughan the moniker "Sassy", a nickname that matched her personality. She liked it, and the name and its shortened variant "Sass" stuck with colleagues and the press. In written communications, Vaughan often spelled it "Sassie".{{cn|date=May 2025}}