A New Spin on Words and Music : The arts: New Alliance Records’ 16-project recording venture brings together spoken-word artists and alternative voices to the ‘ivory tower school’ of poetry.

Laughter and applause rippled through a capacity audience at Cafe Largo one recent evening as Marisela Norte recited the English lines, peppered with Spanish phrases, of a new poem called “976-LOCA” over the muted rhythms of Willie Loya’s conga drums. The appreciative response continued after Norte and Loya left the stage to Marvin Evans’ piano backing the bluesy swoops of Wanda Coleman reading several of her shorter pieces.

Coleman and Norte are veterans of the live spoken-word scene that has sprung up in music clubs and coffeehouses here over the last few years, and they know that probably just a handful of striking phrases from their works may have lingered with the audience. But that hit-or-miss response may start changing with New Alliance Records’ recent releases of Coleman’s “Berserk on Hollywood Boulevard” and Norte’s “NORTE/word” in the label’s series of recordings devoted to L.A.’s spoken-word artists.

For producer Harvey Robert Kubernik, who began and is overseeing the 16-project venture, it’s the high-water mark of a 10-year quest to spotlight new, alternative voices to the “ivory tower school” of poetry on record.

“I’ve always been drawn to people that are nurtured by Southern California,” Kubernik said before the Cafe Largo performance. “It didn’t surprise me that both Marisela and Wanda were born here.

“A lot of people I work with come to Southern California to find themselves. I’ve been bringing forward people that are providing correctional information that steps on stereotypes and completely flies past the pigeonholing.”

The New Alliance take on spoken word is significantly broader than, for example, the straightforward recitals of works by well-known poets released on the Caedmon label. Kubernik’s productions are built on a mutual-consent approach--the artists aren’t necessarily poets and may simply read their works, set them to musical accompaniment or spin tales culled from their experiences living in Los Angeles.

“JazzSpeak” features works focusing on the jazz experience and mixes local poets with such national literary figures as Amiri Baraka and Ishmael Reed. “Black & Tan Club” anthologizes local writers whom Kubernik has been championing but ran up against resistance when trying to land recording deals and live bookings for them.

Planned releases over the next six months include Linda Albertano, Harry E. Northup and Scott Richardson (with three selections read by actor Robert Mitchum). On tap for early next year: a compilation of women writers (“DisClosure”), a collection of pieces on sports themes (“Innings and Quarters”) and a CD re-issue of the 1988 “Black Angeles” collection featuring Coleman and Michelle T. Clinton.

Recordings by Danny Weitzmann (“The Wet Dog Shakes”) and the blackmadrid trio (“Atlantic Crossing: the people’s journey” are already in record stores, but the Coleman-Norte pairing is most representative of the different approaches in the New Alliance series. Coleman has received a Guggenheim Fellowship for poetry, had several volumes of prose and poetry published by Black Sparrow Press and is a veteran of several spoken-word recordings.

“I don’t write specifically with an ear to be recorded,” said Coleman. “I come out of a music background and an oral tradition and I’ve integrated it into my total work. When I’m structuring something, my first consideration is how it works on the page--how it reads without my voice.”

Norte, on the other hand, writes in Spanish or employs a bilingual blend, gears her writing toward live presentation and has never been extensively published. Three pieces on “NORTE/word” date from her first public reading in 1982 and she hopes the exposure from her first recording will lead to a publishing breakthrough.

“It’s like an alternative to a book right now,” Norte said. “A lot of my work is in Spanish with no translation because it dies from Spanish to English. It doesn’t sound like anything--it’s dry, it’s horrible and I hate it.”

Kubernik, “39 and holding,” has roots in the music business as a lyric-conscious music journalist and West Coast manager of A&R; for MCA Records. His first spoken-word projects were an uneven but intriguing trilogy of double albums released in the early ‘80s on his own Freeways label. More recently, he was project coordinator of the boxed set reissue of Beat-era icon Jack Kerouac’s recordings that earned two Grammy nominations last year.

The connection between New Alliance and Kubernik’s BarKubCo Music operation flowered three years ago when Kubernik produced “Black Angeles” for the label. New Alliance, a subsidiary of the local alternative label SST, plans an initial release of 1,000 to 2,000 cassettes and CDs per recording (local outlets include Tower Records, Rhino Records in Westwood, Aron’s in Hollywood and Poo-bah’s in Pasadena).

“New Alliance made their commitment to me with signed contracts as well as advance monies before any reviews or airplay,” Kubernik said. “Meetings with them are not marketing meetings; it’s a question of do you think the artist has the material? It’s not budget heaven but they look at things like I do--as a challenge.”