character set encoding bug in connector 5.1.36/5.1.37? (no replies)

I have a java app that puts tweets into mysql.
On 5.1.36/5.1.37 when i try to insert something with an emoji, e.g. U+1F603, it throws an exception, namely:

Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x83' for column 'text' at row 1

Works ok on 5.1.35 and 5.1.33.

Any help is appreciated.

Versions:
OS: CentOS 6.5
Tomcat: 8.0.26
Java: 1.7.0_79-b15
MySQL Cluster: 5.6.25-ndb-7.4.7-log

my.cnf
character-set-server = utf8mb4
collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci
default-character-set = utf8mb4

mysql> SHOW VARIABLES WHERE Variable_name LIKE 'character\_set\_%' OR Variable_name LIKE 'collation%';
+--------------------------+--------------------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+--------------------------+--------------------+
| character_set_client | utf8mb4 |
| character_set_connection | utf8mb4 |
| character_set_database | utf8mb4 |
| character_set_filesystem | binary |
| character_set_results | utf8mb4 |
| character_set_server | utf8mb4 |
| character_set_system | utf8 |
| collation_connection | utf8mb4_general_ci |
| collation_database | utf8mb4_general_ci |
| collation_server | utf8mb4_unicode_ci |
+--------------------------+--------------------+

mysql> select table_collation from tables where table_name = 'tweet';
+--------------------+
| table_collation |
+--------------------+
| utf8mb4_general_ci |
+--------------------+

mysql> select character_set_name,collation_name from columns where table_name = 'tweet' and column_name = 'text';
+--------------------+--------------------+
| character_set_name | collation_name |
+--------------------+--------------------+
| utf8mb4 | utf8mb4_general_ci |
+--------------------+--------------------+

JDBC:
url="jdbc:mysql:loadbalance://
host1,host2/db?
connectTimeout=1000
&
loadBalancePingTimeout=100
&
loadBalanceBlacklistTimeout=10000
&
retriesAllDown=2
&
failOverReadOnly=false
&
loadBalanceStrategy=bestResponseTime
&
loadBalanceValidateConnectionOnSwapServer=true
&
allowMasterDownConnections=true
&
noAccessToProcedureBodies=true
&
cacheServerConfiguration=true
&
dontTrackOpenResources=true
&
elideSetAutoCommits=true
&
enableQueryTimeouts=false
&
maintainTimeStats=false
&
useLocalSessionState=true"