The cover is the same for the digital as well as the physical CD release. the cover credits four artists yet the release group itself only lists the main one, same for the CD. while the digital release lists all four.
shouldn’t this be the same for both releases as well as the group itself? going by various digital distribution and streaming platforms they usually only credit Bill Frisell. but yet again, the cover credits all four.
If I understand the guidelines correctly all four artists should be entered.
For your first example, I think that both releases should credit all four artists (since that’s what the cover art does), with Bill Frisell listed first (because his name is the most prominent).
I’m less sure about the “with” join phrase since it doesn’t seem to be on the cover. I’d probably just use a comma and space to separate Frisell from Gregory Tardy unless there’s another source that uses “with” (per Style / Artist Credits - MusicBrainz).
It doesn’t make sense for me for the credits to differ between the digital media and CD releases. They have identical cover art, so I assume that the artist/label intent would be for them to be credited identically.
With similar reasoning, I’d expect the other release to be credited to all three artists who appear on the cover. The title also seems like it should be “As an Unperfect Actor: Nine Shakespeare Sonnets” (lowercase “an” per Style / Language / English - MusicBrainz and subtitle included).
A related case that I run into is when the cover includes something like “X Trio” but also “Y” and “Z”, where Y and Z are also members of the trio. I usually just credit this to an “X Trio” entity with relationships listing X as an eponymous member and Y and Z as regular members, but I’m curious if there’s a better approach.
