The leader of New York’s annual Halloween parade will not be a drag queen on roller skates. It will not be a giant caricature of President Bush. It will not be a naked man covered in glitter.

The star will be a little trumpeter from New Orleans – 10-year-old Glenn Hall III, whose house and horn were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. In New York, he got a new trumpet that he will play today in what is billed as the country’s biggest public Halloween event.

Glenn’s role as grand marshal is part of a New Orleans theme at today’s parade, which takes place in New York’s Greenwich Village. The parade’s symbol – as it was in 2001 after 9-11 – is a phoenix rising from its ashes.

The phoenix will rise from a traditional New Orleans jazz funeral, with displaced Katrina survivors dancing behind a coffin in both grief and joie de vivre.

For Katrina survivors, the phoenix in the parade is not just a symbol.

“Their lives are in bits and pieces, they’re spread all over,” parade director Jeanne Fleming said. “But on the night of Halloween, we’ll all come together. When this band comes down the street and they’re playing their music, it’s going to move energy and spirit. People are going to feel the mourning that needs to be done for New Orleans.”