Please identify the specific bands/records which identified "soul jazz ... right from the start in the '40s".
The early leaders were mainly tenor players: Illinois Jacquet, without whom there would have been no honkers; Gene Ammons; Ammons/Stitt (though half or maybe more of Stitt's career is Bebop); Arnett Cobb; Ike Quebec; Big Jay McNeely; Paul Williams; Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson; Hal "Cornbread" Singer; Wild Bill Moore; Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis (first tenor/organ records in '49). Other big names included Tiny Grimes & his Rockin' Highlanders. Among vocalists, Dinah was the Queen. In the early '50s, there was Wild Bill Davis and other pre-Smith organists like Milt Buckner & Bill Doggett.
MG
None of these people played "soul jazz" as the term is used.
I'm not at all disputing that there is a continuum from those you mention to soul jazz as the term has been applied (by everyone I know save yourself). You might want to call those folks "pre-soul jazz".
This is also the view of Bob Porter, a man whose views on this subject are not to be sneezed at, I reckon.
MG
Bob Porter is never wrong about anything....just ask him!!!
He certainly exudes an air of self-confidence.
MG