Simple build system

[Funkygoby]

Hello,
I have lilypond files organised as such transciptions/artist/album/[tune_name].ly or compositions/band/[compo_name].ly. I would like a build system inspired on the port system, it has already been discussed here: http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=9861
Based on this thread, make seems to be the best solution.
Currently, I have a Makefiles in every folder. In Vim, I can run make and build the resulting pdf in the same folder.

This worked as long as you have few scores but today I have hundreds of .pdf, .midi hanging around in those folders built from differents lilypond versions (so not visually consistent).

Time for a more convenient system. I would to like be able to:
-build a whole artist discography

cd artist && make

-build a specific tune

cd artist/album && make

-have the resulting files stored in a pdfs folder either with a hierarchy or with names such as artist - album - tune.pdf (tune being the original .ly filename)

I have a little experience with Makefiles for C and Java project. My guess is:
-I need a Makefile in every places I want to be able to run make
-I need to have a "mother-Makefile" for generic rules that is included by all other Makefiles

My issues are that I never really understood recursivity with make. In the case of

cd artist/ && make

how to tell make to enter every subfolder and read the Makefile.
How to handle the resulting files? My Makefiles are always dirty with this because I move files around from the folder where make is executing which, in my case, happens to be the sub-sub-folder.
Do you have any recommendations? Hint?

Extra question:
While writing a thread, how to highlight command names? or ports? I read the forum "README" but couldn't find a thing about this.