You have to admire guys that can sit in a Glenn Miller type setting and read the charts seeing them for the first time. Al Hirt could do it.

I can read a little. I play mostly from memory and knowing how to run the chords on my sax.

One fellow in high school could read anything you'd put in front of him but he couldn't jam on a Bb blues without the music.

He learned to read first and by ear and such later. It all depends on what you enjoy and what you want to do. I get bored practicing reading.