The thing, in my eyes, is this. I am sure there have been GREAT players who could not read. Many, , the Beatles, Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Django Reinhardt and Robert Johnson, have been named here. I believe James Burton also could not read.

But let's look at what those great players do/did. Claptop, SRV, Hendrix... what was their forte? Their solos, which didn't require reading. Johnson? Blues artist. Nobody needs to read 12 bar blues. Django? Improvisational jazz player. By definition, improv does not call for reading. Would Zappa have been able to churn out 60-ish albums of that complex music had he not been a reader and writer? And would his roster of players been able to remember the structured parts of those songs to play a 3 hour concert without reading. Again, remove the solos from your logic here. The solos are free form, though in some cases, according to Vai, Zappa actually wrote out the solos.

I am talking about a situation where I walk into a rehearsal with a chart for (and again I keep going back to probably my favorite song of all time) MacArthur Park. That is a symphony played in a rock vein. MOST, I won't say "no", but MOST, hobby level players are not going to decode those dischordant horn stabs that are all over the intro and the interludes. The 3rd movement is an extremely intricate set of lines played by the different brass and woodwind players that really have nothing to do with each other. (That movement in symphony is typically called the scherzo, which is a total departure from the rest of the piece, often in a different time setting). The modality of that song would make it extremely difficult for a non reader to play it mainly because there is too much to memorize, particularly because the notes played by the trombone are far from a harmony apart with the trumpet, and you just can't wing it with that song. That kind of song HAS to be read. It really HAS to be. I bought the chart online and even with reading experience my first impression was "What the ****!" It took me a lot of hours of voicing chords to a way a piano can play them rather than an orchestra. And that song just falls apart if it is not performed by an orchestra. Sometimes it comes down to the difference between hearing and listening, and they are two different things. I am sure you have all heard that song many times. Have you ever LISTENED to it?

So reading or not reading is not a dealbreaker. It simply opens up the scope of what people can play. It certainly doesn't make one player better than another. Those of you here who don't read are all likely better players than I am. But it comes back to this. Reading and improvising are a horse and a donkey. Two equine species that look similar but are different.

I really just kind of refer everybody to the Wrecking Crew guys. They were ALL extremely proficient readers. Because of their reading skill they could often do things in one take. Their playing skills are implicit, but that reading skill made them the go to guys. Why pay players scale to do 47 takes when these guys can do it in one or two?