Talk about changing latitudes and changing attitudes. Until recently, Milwaukee trumpeter Michael Drake spent the winter months working the resorts of the Caribbean from the Mexican coast through the Florida Keys to the Dominican Republic. His CDs from those years echoed those gigs with tropical-flavored pop jazz. Although memories of that era linger lightly on his new CD, Sazzunk, Drake eagerly speaks of it as a return to his roots.    The coordinates of his new/old direction are encoded in the album’s eccentric title, a compound of salsa, jazz and funk, three styles Drake made his own during the ’70s and early-’80s. He was prominent in those years on the city’s active fusion scene and played with many local Latin musicians.    “I always gravitated toward Latin rhythms,” Drake says over lunch at Acapulco, ordering off the menu in Spanish. “When it comes time for me to write my own music, I find that I understand Latin music better than anything else. It was the path of least resistance for me.”    Although Drake began playing live in Milwaukee shortly after moving here in 1969 from Tulsa, Okla., he spent his early years in the back row of popular local bands, honing his craft and his prodigious work ethic before stepping into center stage as a recording artist and band leader in the early-’80s.    “I allowed life experience and education to pour over me to the point that when it came time for me to write my own music, the spirit and intellect were mature enough,” Drake explains. “I had so many melodies dancing in my head for years, but I said, ‘No, I’ve got a few more years to live before I start writing.’”    And when he did, the first things to pour from his fingertips sounded Latin.    “Funky Monkey,” which opens Sazzunk, is streamlined and dynamic, fusing Latin and Caribbean rhythms and topped with Drake’s confident trumpet prowess. “Alone With You” is straight-ahead jazz, a group effort led by Drake’s rippling horn. With “Winter’s End,” he revisits a number originally recorded on a cassette-only release in the ’80s.    Sazzunk is Drake’s eighth album. All of his recordings have been self-released. “I was told when I started: ‘If you’ve got good product, they’ll find you.’ You know who found me? Not the music industry, but my fans.”    And Drake has accumulated many fans over the years, playing nearly 300 shows a year, ranging from workshops for Getzen trumpets to club dates, weddings, corporate functions and pool parties. “After doing a project of this magnitude, the effort was financially and emotionally exhausting,” Drake says of Sazzunk. “The rewards were emotionally and intellectually exhilarating. The results? I wouldn’t change a thing.”