I wouldn’t merge the two, since they are distinct entities. However, I might advise using an artist credit in the case of releases with only Duke Ellington mentioned on the cover (using “Duke Ellington and His Orchestra” as the artist with “Duke Ellington” as the artist credit).
So basically: set the Duke Ellington Orchestra as the album artist for all releases where we can identify it as such (through the cover, liner notes, or listening), but setting “credited as” as appropriate. If that leaves no releases credited to Ellington alone, no harm done, as he is still founder/member/head honcho of the Orchestra.
Because this is how the releases are credited on the cover.
I’m going to disagree with the other answers. Unless/until the style guidelines change, I don’t think using DE&HO credited as DE makes sense. One isn’t another name for the other.
The recording artist will often be DE&HO, but that doesn’t change how release credits work.
I know, this isn’t ideal. It fragments the artist’s discography. But that’s a problem to solve at the presentation level,
How can the situation be improved then? I think adding an “eponymous” flag to the member of relationship is the way to go. That would make it possible to display more unified discographies at the presentation level. I’d really like to be able to put that in a picard script.
Definitely not. DE and DE&HO refer to two different things, a person and that person’s band. The only reason to merge two MB entities is if they refer to the same thing.
