Adding AM_SILENT_RULES([yes]) to your configure.ac will greatly reduce the output of make. It will look very similar to the linux kernel build:
Making all in common CC strlcat.o CC strlcpy.o AR libcompat.a Making all in netconf/src/ncx CC libncx_a-b64.o CC libncx_a-blob.o CC libncx_a-bobhash.o CC libncx_a-cap.o
This line must go after your AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE initialization. You need to be using automake >= 1.11. There is a good explanation here.