Zingaro, also known as Retrato em Branco e Preto or Portrait in White and Black, is a Brazilian tune composed by Antônio Carlos Jobim with Portuguese lyrics by Chico Buarque. Jobim wrote it in 1965 as an instrumental piece titled Zingaro, meaning gypsy, about a musician who ultimately must pawn his violin and is left with nothing. The instrumental version appeared on the 1967 album A Certain Mr. Jobim. Soon after, Jobim invited Chico Buarque to write lyrics, and the piece was reworked as Retrato em Branco e Preto, with Chico’s lyrics appearing on Chico Buarque de Hollanda (Vol. 3) in 1968. The two musicians reportedly created the lyric quickly, and Jobim asked why the order was inverted to black and white rather than white and black; Buarque replied that the latter would only rhyme with tamanco. The song has since been recorded by many artists, including Elis Regina and Jobim, Stan Getz with João Gilberto, João Gilberto, Chet Baker, and others, making it a staple of the Bossa Nova repertoire. An authorized English version, Picture in Black and White, was released in 2011 by Nina Ripe on her debut Apaixonada, with English lyrics by Johan Christher Schütz. Overall, Retrato em Branco e Preto remains a quintessential Bossa Nova tune that showcases Jobim’s melodic elegance and the lyricist’s poetic sensibility.
