Following Natanzon-Zabrodin, we explore the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili hierarchy as an infinite system of mutually consistent relations on the second derivatives of the free energy with some universal coefficients. From this point of view, various combinatorial properties of these coefficients naturally highlight certain non-trivial properties of the KP hierarchy. Furthermore, this approach allows us to suggest several interesting directions of the KP deformation via a deformation of these coefficients. We also construct an eigenvalue matrix model, whose correlators fully describe the universal KP coefficients, which allows us to further study their properties and generalizations.