in Jamaica, Queens in New York City and Long Island, New York. Between 1945 and the late 1980s he provided instruction on accordion, piano, and organ. His pupils included Anthony Ettore, president of the American Accordionist's Association, and Robert Davine, an accordionist and educator at the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver as well as his son John Serry Jr. During the 1950s one of his students, Roy Appey, emerged as the first prize winner in a performance competition hosted by the American Accordionists' Association. In addition, Serry was invited to contribute to the annual series of Master Accordion Classes and seminars sponsored by the American Accordionists Association in New York City in August 2000. He also published several method books for his elementary, intermediate, and advanced grade students between 1945 and 1983. In addition, he took note of the limitations imposed by the Stradella bass system during performances of classical music. In an effort to circumvent these limitations, he designed and developed a working model of a free-bass system for the accordion during this decade. It incorporated dual keyboards for the soloist's left hand while incorporating two sets of reeds which were tuned in octaves. This gave the soloist access to a range of tones which exceeded three and one-half octaves. The 1950s: Broadway and television During the early days of network television in the 1950s, Serry performed at CBS as a staff member of the original CBS Orchestra (1949–1960) and an accompanist on several live network television programs including The Jackie Gleason Show in 1953, The Frank Sinatra Show in the 1950s, and on the prime time drama I Remember Mama in 1953 starring Peggy Wood. In 1951 he also arranged his compositions La Culebra and African Bolero for solo flute. He dedicated the scores to his close friend Julius Baker. In the same year, his photograph was featured within an article about the accordion which was published by the journal International Musician - the official publication of the International Federation of Musicians, along with photographs of such noted accordionists as: Louis Del Monte, Pietro Frosini, Anthony Galla-Rini, Charles Magnante, Charles Nunzio, and Art Van Damme. During this time he also performed under the musical direction of Andre Kostelanetz at CBS. As the first accordionist in the Serry Sextette, he recorded his own arrangements of several popular melodies and classical themes for the RCA Thesaurus