Just dug through my collection and it seems I have nothing from Phineas, will have to fix that soon. In the mean time listening to McCoy Tyner - rebirth from Sahara

I enjoy Tyner a lot as well.  My personal favorite of his is a solo album he did in memory of John Coltrane, Echoes of a Friend.  He can be a a bit less melodic and overuses certain intervals a bit - on a lot of his tracks he tries to impart a sort of eastern flavor, actually ends up replacing the classic blues scale with a more "exotic" sound with a lot of what I call "mandarin intervals." But I really dig his sound.


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As for Peterson, to me he is untouchable within his style.  He essentially took Tatum and excised most of the impossible glissandos (while still striding with the left no less - a feat pretty much only Tatum could accomplish), infused his playing with more of a bluesy influence, focused a bit more on harmonics, and reigned himself in when necessary.  (If you Listen to Ella and Louis for instance, that's Oscar playing piano - he holds himself back as he is of tertiary importance in the mix, but I remember hearing it and being astounded at what he could do even when constrained like that, it totally proved to me that he's not just a player who relies on dazzling technical brilliance to distract the listener from a lack of depth.)


Anyway, he played so many dates and with so many configurations that not all his albums and performances are created equal.  He's probably most well known for his songbooks (which were all the rage in the jazz world at the time, Ella kicked it off with her wildly popular songbooks in '56 and by '59 when Oscar started doing songbooks it was something every virtuoso musician and singer was being pressured to do) and Night Train.  My Personal favorites are probably his trio of albums at the Blue Note and his Exclusively for my Friends series.


Again, with Oscar, its dynamic, its swinging and bluesy and there are a whole lot of notes being played - he won't be everyone's favorite, his style will be too busy for those who prefer minimalism, and he goes pretty far off book (only in the right hand, he stays very much within the song's chordal patterns even while improvising if you pay attention) - but even those who don't enjoy listening to him have to admit his colossal impact on the jazz music world. 


There's a great series of interviews and duets he did with Andre Previn (conductor, arranger, and jazz musician extraordinaire) for the BBC that you can find on youtube - it's one of the most insightful things I've seen about the jazz process.  He is so very thoughtful, penetrating yet humble and a truly wonderful person, a complete gentleman.  When he tells the story of not touching the piano for two months when first hearing Tatum I completely get him - when he tells the story of a "prodigy" who could only play exactly in the style of others it also clicks.  He was the complete package.

Tari, just wanted to know your opinion on OP. For some reason many jazz knowledgeable people dismiss him. I regard him as highly as you seem to do, and consider him among those very few who can play with both hands. Funnily enough his playing on the Ella & Louis series caught my attention too. Simply brilliant. The Exclusively for my Friends series is also a highlight in my stash.

When people speak of technical brilliance and soulless music Steve Vai and Satriani come to mind. Also Pollini.

Torpedo, I think there are a few things at play.  One, an inexplicable shift towards minimalism as a "truer" art form, Peterson not being a "tortured" artist with any emotional or drug issues, and his upbeat style when "upbeat" jazz was considered past it's prime.  His mainstream success was probably also not great for critical acclaim from the puritans (so odd that a genre that was about not having strictures in many ways has dogmatic puritans), and as I've mentioned I think some think technical brilliance acts as a diversion to prevent the listener from realizing there isn't depth within the work.  I do not think this true of Peterson.  Other jazz pianists have consistently rated him as the "best" over the years, though not always their favorite to listen to.  I take the word of jazz critics who aren't well respected jazz musicians on the side very lightly myself.  Jazz can have a lot of the same hoighty toighty BS that much of the art and fashion world can be afflicted with.  Be arrogant or brash enough and you don't have to be good.
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RD, I think we're agreeing then to an extent- and I guess there would be a theoretical point where I'd almost objectively call something "soulless."  It's a line that I've rarely witnessed though as I tend to gravitate towards things I like and shy away from those I don't. Some of the bleached music that you hear in the supermarket I would personally call "soulless", but... I just don't think I would use the term absolutely, because if it connects to some people, a segment of the population, emotionally - I don't know, I just wouldn't personally use the term in an absolute objective sense in relation to just about any music.  But maybe that's just me and my musical/artistic equivalency talking.


Regarding free jazz, there's no refrain, no chorus, not necessarily anything to familiarize yourself with as it's different from moment to moment - something like that is much harder to have a connection with, but I'm sure it can be done.  I can enjoy "mild" free jazz, (some sort of rhythmic basis or maybe an understanding of key) but totally out there nihilist jazz I see as helpful for the same reason any experimentation can be - you can then definitively say "Well - I'm never doing that again."