MusicBrainz API/Search/ArtistSearch

The artist index contains the following fields you can search:

field	Description
alias	the aliases/misspellings/artist credits for this artist
arid	artist id
artist	artist name
begin	artist birth date/band founding date (format: YYYY-MM-DD)
comment	artist comment to differentiate similar artists
country	country associated with artist
end	artist death date/band dissolution date (format: YYYY-MM-DD)
gender	gender of artist
ipi	artist ipi code
sortname	artist sortname
tag	folksonomy tag
type	artist type (person or group)

Artist search terms with no fields specified search the artist, sortname and alias fields.