I love piano too, and leaving aside such greats as Bud Powell and Don Pullen I am a huge Herbie Hancock fan but I wonder if you have ever heard 'The Piano' by him?  To me that cd is "classical" rather than jazz in many ways.  I think if you go to Amazon you can hear clips.

p.s. available on Amazon for £5!!

I like Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage.  As to Don Pullen here is a clip of him with George Adams (another of my Heros!) I did have a better one than this stored in the computer but can't seem to find it now, it was him just with another pianist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWQr5iIGb7o

I am going to read and listen to this thread later, when I have time.
Meanwhile a former student sent me this link: http://www.jazzwise.com/
My relaxation DVD Yoga for musicians came from this site. It is really good DVD if anyone interested.

All-time fave jazz pianists include Earl Hines, Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson, Mary Lou Williams, Art Tatum, Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck, Cecil Taylor. Don't really know Willie 'The Lion" Smith or Marian McPartland well; slightly in two minds about Bud Powell and Lenny Tristano, Fats Waller doesn't really light my fire. Peterson was a great technician, but had very little imagination. Can't abide Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and distinctly underwhelmed by Bill Evans. Count Basie and Duke Ellington - hard for me mentally to separate them out as 'pianists', as that field of their activity seems so integrated with everything else (more so than with Jelly Roll).

Tatum clearly to my ears was a significant influence on Peterson (though Peterson didn't tend to talk about this so much as the influence of Nat King Cole), but the comparison between the two makes the very significant difference them all the more apparent.

You know that quote 'I'd give a million dollars to know how Horowitz plays his octaves, but what's really important is what Horowitz feels when he plays those octaves' (or words to that effect)? That's very much how I feel about Tatum. One of the greatest facilities of all time (not totally without its limits - not so great at really full-bodied arrays of successive chords, perhaps, something that Brubeck was a master of), but all inextricably intertwined with his personality.

I listen to Monk and Cecil Taylor far more than to anyone else mentioned here so far. I used to be very keen on Borah Bergman too, but what he's been doing recently turns me right off. On the other hand I think John Tilbury's improvisational playing is getting better all the time. I'd say the same about Fred van Hove. I've never really "got" Muhal Richard Abrams though I haven't tried as much as I ought to have don. For me the most creative pianist working presently in the UK is Veryan Weston. Chris Burn, Marilyn Crispell, Agusti Fernandez, Alex Hawkins, Wolfgang Mitterer, Howard Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Irene Schweizer, Pat Thomas, Keith Tippett are all people whose playing I've been impressed by.

I suppose that indicates that I don't have such an intimate relationship with jazz piano playing as such.

Cecil Taylor, obviously, and especially in several of his solo performances - Silent Tongues, Indent, Garden, Solo, leading up to Erzulie Maketh Scent. His recordings with quartets or larger groups can be superb, but they are not in the same league - the solo recordings are sublime. One aspect I find interesting is the way in which the overt influences - Debussy, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Bartok and Messiaen - are expressed compared to composers with very similar influences such as James Dillon. (Erzulie Maketh Scent is directly comparable to the Book of Elements, for example, and parts of Spring of Two Blue J's remind me of Black/Nebulae.) This does make me think about the difference between composed and improvised music, and the nature of human imagination. Despite the polemical aspect to CT's music, I don't think, or haven't sensed, that there is any comparison of substance with composers such as Michael Finnissy, however.

I also enjoy Bill Evans, particularly the classic 1961 Village Vanguard recordings, and some of the later overdubbed Verve recordings. I always get the feeling of something latent - not dissimilar to several of Shostakovich's preludes and fugues. And I can listen for hours to Andrew Hill - there is a superb ROIO recording of Hill and Mal Waldron at a Canadian festival which I would strongly recommend. Paul Bley is also a pianist I find fascinating - Blood, Footloose etc are wonderful, and I have Solo at Mondsee in my to listen to pile.

Finally, I would second the comments on John Tilbury - his duos with Evan Parker are superb.