  It has recently been observed that certain nonassociative algebras (called
"weakly nonassociative", WNA) determine, via a universal hierarchy of ordinary
differential equations, solutions of the KP hierarchy with dependent variable
in an associative subalgebra (the middle nucleus). We recall central results
and consider a class of WNA algebras for which the hierarchy of ODEs reduces to
a matrix Riccati hierarchy, which can be easily solved. The resulting solutions
of a matrix KP hierarchy then determine (under a rank 1 condition) solutions of
the scalar KP hierarchy. We extend these results to the discrete KP hierarchy.
Moreover, we build a bridge from the WNA framework to the Gelfand-Dickey
formulation of the KP hierarchy.
